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Students start effort to get Rosa Parks on U.S. money
County’s
diversity group honors late civil rights figure
By Matt Volke, Gazette Reporter
Crowds of students packed around a table outside the Duanesburg
High School cafeteria wiggling their way through the crowd to
sign their name in support of Rosa Parks. Students from the
school have been working on a petition to get the deceased civil
rights leader’s likeness on American currency.
“I think it’s a good idea, because she started the civil rights
movement,” said Breanna James, a sixth-grader who was taking
names on a petition on Friday. “She’s a hero.”
The idea to honor Parks on paper currency came from a study
group through the Schenectady County Embraces Diversity program.
About 100 students from every district in the county get
together in study sessions to meet one another and to discuss
issues in cultural diversity.
The students came up with the idea of getting Parks on American
money.
Shirley Readdean, an organizer of the diversity program, said
the entire concept came out of lessons about tolerance. “This
all came from the students,” Readdean said.
Parks died in October at the age of 92. She became known for her
arrest in 1955 after she refused to give up her seat to a white
man on an Alabama bus.
Her act drew the support of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who
is honored today on the national holiday bearing his name. King
led a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery bus system in another
famous chapter in the modern civil rights movement.
Parks, a former seamstress, became the first women to lie in
state in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington D.C. It’s an honor
usually reserved for national leaders like Abraham Lincoln and
John F. Kennedy Jr.
Duanesburg middle and high school students were the first in the
county to start the project. The schools have four black
students.
Nick Nasseby is in sixth-grade and is the only black student in
his grade. He said he’s been trying to promote the concept with
his peers and was surprised at how well it was received.
“Sometimes, Caucasian people care, and sometimes it goes in one
ear and out the other,” said Nick, who is 11. “I don’t think
everyone is for it, but I’m surprised how many people are
signing up. I think it’s good. The people on our money should be
people who have changed our history.”
“Nick and I might not be friends right now because we would
probably be in different schools,” said “Danielle Hennel,
another sixth-grader, adding that Rosa Parks “stood up for her
rights by sitting down. I really like this idea because she was
a large part of the civil rights movement.”
Students are hoping the movement will grow, eventually become a
national cause.
The petition, which has a picture of Parks’ face superimposed on
a $20 bill, is starting in Duanesburg. Soon, students from the
other seven school districts in the county will be distributing
them.
After that, schools throughout the Capital Region will be asked
to join, and eventually throughout the state.
“It’s a long road ahead,” Readdean said. “But programs like this
are important because they allow children to be heard.”
Colby Smith, a ninth-grader, said she thinks Parks should be on
a bill because there isn’t a lot of education on the civil
rights movement in school, other than brief mentions. Colby and
other students in the study circles watched a video on Parks,
and she said she gained respect for her.
“If Rosa Parks was on a bill, kids would learn more about her
and what she did,” Colby said. “I think it’s something that
could become very big.”
Kelley Smith, a senior, said she’s been trying to get her
classmates to sign up. Some were reluctant she said, because
they thought it would flop, like the $1 coin. But she said that
shouldn’t make a difference.
“She fought as a woman, a black person, and for equal rights all
across America,” she said. “She was such a role model.”
Parks was honored by the U.S. mint in 1999 with a memorial coin,
which is not currency but is a way to honor her.
The mint does have public comment forums and takes suggestions,
but most of the images on U.S. currency comes from Congress, a
spokesperson said.
There are no black leaders on American money.
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